South Florida battered by high winds, rainfall totals over 13 inches in several cities

After a night of flooding rains, South Florida residents emerged on Thursday to discover swamped roads, a closed pier, downed trees and snapped power lines while remaining under high wind alerts. Throughout South Florida, more than 110,000 were without power at dawn, a number that fell to less than 60,000 in the afternoon.

Broward schools were closed on Thursday, but officials said they would reopen Friday. The state courthouse in downtown Fort Lauderdale also will reopen Friday.

Broward County took the biggest soaking of the South Florida region. According to the National Weather Service, Lauderdale-by-the-Sea received the most rain, at 13.31 inches. Oakland Park, Wilton Manors, Cooper City, Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport and Pembroke Pines all received over 12 inches. Weston picked up 10.36 inches and Miramar 9.89 inches.

After Wednesday’s downpour, a total of 102 inches of rain fell in Fort Lauderdale to date this year — more than any other city in the country, Mayor Dean Trantalis said during a news conference Thursday afternoon at the W Fort Lauderdale hotel.

“It’s been a pretty wet season for all of us,” he said. “Nonetheless, the city will continue to move forward on its stormwater improvement projects.”

In the past three days, parts of Fort Lauderdale saw up to a foot of rain and gusts of wind up to 60 miles per hour, which has mainly led to street flooding, Trantalis said. And while the wet roadways have been a “nuisance,” he said, “we have not seen anything like the devastating flood that we saw back April 12.”

Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue received 80 calls for service relating to the storms, the mayor said.

Directly outside of the hotel, heaps of sand still covered portions of A1A, but it was actively being plowed back onto the beach.

Palm Beach County fared a bit better. Delray Beach topped the list with 6.19 inches. Boca Raton and the Golden Lakes development in the central part of the county both received just over 4 inches, and Jupiter was hit with just over 3 inches.

Miami-Dade County was hard-hit as well: Biscayne Park got 10.12 inches and Coral Gables and Coconut Grove were both soaked with just over 9 inches of rain.

Flood watches in the area have been canceled, but a wind advisory remains in effect until 7 p.m. Thursday for the coastal and metropolitan areas of Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties, with forecasters predicting gusts from 25 to 35 mph possible. Tree limbs and power lines may be down because of the overnight wind and rains, so extra care should be used when driving.

During a National Weather Service briefing on Thursday, meteorologist Sammy Hadi said that wind gusts over the region reached 50 to 60 mph, with the highest gusts reaching near hurricane strength. Wind speeds at Port Everglades topped out at 75 mph, Government Cut in Miami saw 75 mph and Dania Pier reached 70 mph.

High winds will continue to produce dangerous marine conditions, such as rip currents and high surf, through Friday, forecasters said, and relatively high tides will slow the drainage process through Friday as well.

The area of low pressure that produced last night’s tempest, with wind at near-hurricane strength, was not considered a tropical system, because tropical systems pick up their energy from warm water, Hadi said. “This system was connected to a frontal boundary,” he said. “There was a gradient between warm and cold air, so it wasn’t tropical.”

Hadi said the system is moving off to the northeast. Sunshine is peeking through the clouds and dry air will be moving in through the weekend.

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As of mid-afternoon Thursday, FPL reported 11,870 sites without power in Broward County, 32,241 in Miami-Dade and 14,853 in Palm Beach County.

Wednesday’s storms broke many railroad crossings, according to the Florida East Coast Railway, causing one train in Boca Raton on the tracks at Yamato Road to briefly halt, spurring traffic congestion in the area. The rail line is sending people out to fix the broken crossings.

Brightline reported service delays due to the weather, primarily wind-related.

Traffic lights were down and sand covered State Road A1A in Fort Lauderdale as strong winds battered the coast.

Some of the areas hit hard on Wednesday included those who experienced the bizarre, unprecedented flood in April.

While the nearly 26 inches of rain that fell in Fort Lauderdale in a matter of hours and caused severe flash flooding in April is not in the forecast, the scene Thursday is worse than what Pompano Beach was pummeled with in April, said Pompano Beach city spokeswoman Sandra King. The city’s tennis center and dog park are both underwater and are closed, along with the pickleball courts and aquatic centers are closed, and the Fischer Family Pier saw significant damage and is closed until further notice.

The City of Pompano Beach sustained a tumultuous two days, with “numerous” calls coming in from stranded drivers beginning Tuesday night and continuing into Thursday morning, said city public communications director Sandra King.

The scene at the ocean in Pompano Beach on Thursday is extremely windy with high, rocky waves. Save for the rather unswimmable conditions, the temperature and clear skies dotted with parasailers make it a beautiful beach day.

Alexander Haugen, 26, is a surfer, but stitches on his leg prevent him from going in the water. Instead, he was watching the waves Thursday afternoon as a surfer tried to catch a ride on the crashing waves.

The rain was bad Wednesday night at his parents’ home in Plantation where he also lives, he said, but the conditions were better by Thursday morning.

Elodie Jovial was also enjoying the beach with her son in Pompano on Thursday afternoon. “No one I know, no neighbors, had their houses flooded,” she said.

Puddles of standing water are pooled in portions of the neighborhood, but nothing beyond that, she said.

Still, the scariest part of the two-day rainstorms was trying to drive through it. Jovial said she ventured out Tuesday night and Wednesday morning and was met with wet roads

The area of greatest concern as of Wednesday afternoon was near the Fort Lauderdale International Airport — the same area that was hammered in April, resulting in the airport being closed for two days, and highly destructive flooding in nearby Edgewood, River Oaks, Shady Banks and Melrose Park.

Maritza Pagan, 49, lives in Melrose Park, an area hard hit by the record-breaking April flooding. She and her family were upended then when the rains flooded their neighborhood and displaced her and her husband, children and grandchildren for about a month.

“I had to do everything pretty much to rebuild,” Pagan said. “We had to move to two homes, one of our cars flooded. My kids were in two different places, we have one vehicle, we were dealing with my kids and my grandkids, we were taking six kids to six schools.”

The National Weather Service has issued hazardous weather condition advisories for the Hollywood area through Thursday into Friday.

Periods of moderate to locally heavy rainfall are possible today across the east coast, which may lead to additional flooding concerns in urban and poor drainage locations.

High tides are expected at 10:03 p.m. Thursday, and at 10:52 a.m. and 10:57 p.m. Friday.

Rip currents will also be a concern along the beaches.

Earlier this month, the weather service called for a relatively wet winter in South Florida, due in part to the influence of El Niño, which causes the subtropical jet stream to shift to the south, carrying moisture from the Pacific, and picking up even more moisture over the Gulf of Mexico while steering storms across the southern U.S.